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A collective groan echoed across the lady blogosphere on Monday, when young actress Shailene Woodley joined the ever-growing ranks of celebrities who don't understand what the word feminist means. When Time asked Woodley whether she considers herself a feminist, the Divergent star replied, "No because I love men, and I think the idea of 'raise women to power, take the men away from the power' is never going to work out because you need balance."

The Internet has been quick to point out the errors in Woodley's words (for starters, feminism doesn't involve hating men or raising women above them), but this incident highlights more than Hollywood ignorance: The obsessive vetting of female celebrities' feminist credentials is another way in which high-profile women are subject to more exacting expectations than their male peers.

Sexism affects everyone, but female celebrities are increasingly getting grilled about their ideological leanings in a way that male stars aren't. From Lady Gaga, to Kelly Clarkson, to Miley Cyrus, to Taylor Swift, to Madonna, Katy Perry, to Beyoncé, it's clear that the media particularly loves to drop the F bomb question on women with strong, independent public personas, music or on-screen characters (and, more often than not, scorn or mock them when their responses are deemed lacking).

We don't do this to the guys. There are plenty of listicles praising exclusively men or women who wear the feminist label, but there are also many expressing outrage or sheer disbelief over powerful women who don't. "Male Celebrities You Won't Believe Don't Call Themselves Feminists," on the other hand, is a less common theme.

This isn't an issue of consciously ceding space to female voices, nor some deliberate ploy to let men off the hook. It's more that "Are you a feminist?" has been tossed in with "What designer are you wearing?" and "What's your diet regimen?" in the media's mind as something that only concerns girls. It doesn't.

Take Ryan Gosling. The 33-year-old actor famously called the MPAA "misogynistic" for giving Blue Valentine an NC-17 rating for a scene depicting consensual cunnilingus, while granting films containing sexual violence only an "R." In standing up against this sexist hypocrisy, Gosling won many a feminist heart. Separately, Gosling's visage also served as the backdrop for the hilarious "Feminist Ryan Gosling" series, a meme so popular is has been published as a hardcover book.

Despite this attention, Gosling has not been pressed to publicly declare himself a feminist. One interview addressed the issue indirectly by asking Gosling if he thought he looked like a feminist, but Gosling evaded an answer. No heartbroken or outraged stories followed. This isn't to disparage Gosling, who appears to be a smart, stand-up guy. It seems he's been given a pass because many of his statements support feminist thinking. But then again, so do many of Woodley's.

When male stars actually do take on the feminist mantle without prompting (generally a good thing), they're often unquestioningly celebrated, whereas their female counterparts may have their every subsequent action dissected for signs of hypocrisy. Joseph Gordon-Levitt, for example, received high praise for telling Ellen Degeneres, "I do call myself a feminist. Absolutely!" And singer-songwriter John Legend said at a fundraising event, "All men should be feminists. If men care about women's rights, the world will be a better place." Legend's declaration was admirable, and earned the Internet's widespread adoration.

By contrast, look at the reception of another outspoken feminist in the music industry: Beyoncé.

Bey is obviously more famous than both Gordon-Levitt and Legend, but her beliefs have been thrust under a disproportionately critical lens. Many point out that she plays into patriarchal sexuality for her advantage, and argue that calling her tour the "Mrs. Carter Tour" and including an insensitive verse by husband Jay Z in her song "Drunk in Love" outweigh her feminist activism.

Regardless of whether you agree with these criticisms, it's worth noting that neither Legend nor Gordon-Levitt have faced nearly any scrutiny since making their bold statements.

Of course, we need to keep things in perspective. Pop feminism often contains problematic mixed messaging; after all, landing a role in a Hollywood blockbuster doesn't come with an honorary degree in feminist theory. To return to Woodley, we should also keep in mind that she is a 22-year-old actress — not Gloria Steinem.

Nevertheless, celebrities are powerful people. Even if we shouldn't be taking all of our activist cues from their sound bites, the fact remains that these men and women have enormous platforms, and as such the potential to be hugely influential when it comes to raising awareness surrounding these issues. The lack of equal emphasis on male celebs' feminist beliefs just perpetuates the idea that the onus to fight sexism falls solely on women's shoulders. So if we're going to insist on asking celebrities about feminism, we need to hold the guys accountable, too.Source

ikr. Instead of using the opportunity to say that feminism is misunderstood because most female celebs under 25 are getting it horribly wrong; they're going with the "how dare you crit a woman, it's sexist to do so."

"Male Celebrities You Won't Believe Don't Call Themselves Feminists," on the other hand, is a less common theme.

well, tbh i generally assume that most guys aren't feminist unless they explicitly say otherwise, which is why a list like that for me is largely pointless. for guys, it's "opt in." with women it's less clear-cut.

i do think it's silly that guys are lauded so much for saying something that basically amounts to: "i'm not a total sexist dick"... we have low standards for men because so many guys are just awful lol.

i think even for the ones who might know what it is, they're afraid that associating with it will somehow damage their image because so many people think feminist = misandrist/angry female, so instead they make up some stupid bullshit word like "humanist" or "genderist". i'm not sure which is worse.

I think we grill women more than men on the topic of feminism because it doesn't matter as much whether or not a man is a feminist. Like yeah, it'd certainly make things a hell of a lot easier if all men identified women as equals, but if that were the case, would we actually need feminism anyway?

So in this situation, it seems appropriate to me to grill women about it because it's important that women, being the hopeful benefactors of the ideology, understand what the ideology actually is and if they don't identify with it, have a valid reason for doing so (eg racism in feminism, trans issues in feminism, etc). But when celebrities go running their mouths about how they're not feminists because they "love men" and they "believe in equality, not putting women on a pedestal," they're disseminating all this false info to young girls that look up to them as women, and it just continues to hinder any efforts at a) creating a feminism that represents every woman and b) actually getting it off the ground so that we can achieve any kind of equality.

yeah, especially since shailene is the female lead in a movie with a huge female audience..young girls are going to be influenced and inspired by her opinions in a way they wouldnt be by their male crushes.

the hell? people have every right to comment on how wrong she was in defining feminism, even more so because she's a celebrity. How many more girls and guys would have listened/believe her definition was accurate if no one pointed it out?Also, those guys mentioned said nothing inaccurate about feminism.

I think he apologized for that, but I also think that moment showed he has a lot of beliefs he still needs to sort out. Just looked it up, and the apology could be better.

"I'm actually glad you asked me about that, because I was embarrassed," he said. "Sometimes the words come out really wrong, and sometimes the words come out really wrong in front of thousands of people. I do apologize."

The 31-year-old went on to say that he was trying to "get at" the fact that "in our culture, girls do tend to get pigeonholed...and I was trying and failing to pay [Blunt] a compliment about the fact that she really succeeded in avoiding those traps and not getting pigeonholed, and even though she's a very good looking young women she is so funny and plays such a badass and a strong woman in Looper."

I'm all for a discussion on how high profile women respond to the feminist question, how men are left out of it, how negative and positive responses are received etc

... But Shailene's comments alone are dumb as fuck and hurt the already beaten down feminist persona in the public eye. I have no time for any of this "But da menz and der power!!!" nonsense that a lot of celebrities bring up. I'm also not gonna listen to any of the crap about how women would somehow get more respect from men if we only just ~respected each other in a sisterhood.~